Efforts have been made to develop toy guns that are capable of firing, at distal targets, multiple projectiles in rapid succession. Given that such toy guns are typically handled by children, it has also been desired that such toy guns be simple to use. In addition, in order to reduce manufacturing costs, attempts have been made to minimize design complexity. A number of toy guns in the marketplace aim to achieve one or more of these objectives.
Air-powered guns, such as Nerf® Powerclip manufactured by Hasbro, Inc., are capable of shooting each projectile quickly and hitting a target with a great force. Air-powered guns are powered by compressed air that is manually pumped up to pressure. Although once pumped the gun is able to shoot multiple projectiles fairly quickly, before shooting each group of projectiles the gun must be pumped up to establish sufficient pressure to propel the projectiles. Unfortunately, this tends to consume relatively substantial amounts of time and energy. Certain air-powered guns are known to require a dozen or more “pumps” before the first dart can be fired. In addition, certain such guns further require that each projectile needs to be individually loaded at the front of the gun, which increases loading time relative to other approaches.
Spring-powered guns are also capable of shooting projectiles at a long distance and with a great force. Spring-powered guns use the spring loaded force to propel the projectiles forward. Spring powered guns, however, cannot provide a fully automatic mode of firing, because each projectile needs to be spring loaded and released one at a time in order to gain sufficient power for the projectile to be propelled forward.
Other toy guns, such as Nerf® Motorized Ballzooka MP 150, available from Hasbro, Inc., are powered by motorized conveyor belts. The motor used in these guns takes a long time to warm up to reach the maximum rotation speed. In addition, it is generally believed that the balls shot by these guns can only be delivered one at a time. Specifically, it is typically the case that once the first ball is fired, a spinning wheel forming part of the motorized conveyor belt responsible for propelling the ball to be fired tends to slow down a bit. Unfortunately, this requires that a delay occur prior to attempting to fire the next ball from the gun at optimal speed, thereby limiting the maximum firing rate capable of being achieved.
Motorized disk shooters are other examples of toy guns. These guns use a fan to shoot small doughnut-shaped disks out of the front ends of the guns. Disk shooters tend to be accurate and to require very little energy to fire. However, only one disk is released at a time when the trigger is pulled. In addition, existing disk shooters do not provide a very long firing range, as they tend to lack the necessary aerodynamic qualities and sufficiently powerful motors.